Introduction
Important infrastructure clients are challenged to make industrial networks extra accessible with out considerably growing cybersecurity dangers. That is due partly to the widespread follow of utilizing Industrial IoT (IIoT) and cloud applied sciences to investigate giant volumes of commercial information to enhance operational efficiencies. To achieve success, this follow requires a stability between advancing digitization to stay aggressive and securing essential infrastructure techniques.
Lots of the Industrial Management Methods (ICS) and Operational Expertise (OT) utilized in essential infrastructure have expertise with little or no built-in safety. Connecting these techniques to exterior, untrusted networks poses safety dangers since these techniques help the protected operation of essential infrastructure. So, how will you safely and securely join these techniques to the cloud to get the advantages from cloud choices with out including danger to the ICS/OT techniques?
AWS recommends following the ten safety golden guidelines for IIoT options. These guidelines advocate to deploy safety home equipment, corresponding to unidirectional gateways, to regulate information move and set up safe connections to exterior, untrusted networks and cloud companies.
Unidirectional gateways permit OT/IIoT information to be despatched from the OT community to the IT community and Cloud in a single course whereas bodily blocking visitors in the wrong way. Unidirectional gateways could be a safe various to firewalls. They meet a number of industrial safety requirements, corresponding to NERC CIP, ISA/IEC 62443, NEI 08-09, NRC 5.71, and TS50701. They’re additionally supported by the Trade IoT Consortium’s Industrial Web Safety Framework, who gives steerage on defending security networks and management networks with unidirectional gateway expertise. NIST SP 800-82 states that utilizing unidirectional gateways might present extra protections related to system compromises at greater ranges or tiers throughout the setting. For instance, a unidirectional gateway deployed between Layers 2 and three might defend Layer 0, 1, and a pair of units from a cybersecurity occasion that happens at Layers 3, 4, or 5. For extra data, confer with the Purdue Enterprise Reference Structure (PERA).
On this weblog, we talk about two choices to ship OT/IIoT information to AWS utilizing unidirectional gateways. You should use Waterfall Safety’s Unidirectional Cloud Gateway to ship OT/IIoT information to AWS IoT SiteWise or AWS IoT Core to help IIoT, Trade 4.0, and AI/ML use circumstances. For instance, to enhance operational efficiencies and cut back unplanned downtime in essential infrastructure operations. This strategy allows clients in essential infrastructure sectors and controlled industries to benefit from AWS Cloud companies whereas limiting the dangers to their ICS/OT environments.
Resolution Overview
Unidirectional gateways are a mixture of {hardware} and software program. Unidirectional gateway {hardware} is bodily capable of ship information in just one course, whereas the gateway software program replicates servers and emulates units. Because the gateway is bodily capable of ship information in just one course, there isn’t a risk of IT-based or internet-based safety occasions pivoting into the OT networks. The gateway’s duplicate servers and emulated units simplify OT/IT integration.
A typical unidirectional gateway {hardware} implementation consists of a community equipment containing two separate circuit boards joined by a fiberoptic cable. The “TX,” or “transmit,” board incorporates a fiber-optic transmitter, and the “RX,” or “obtain,” board incorporates a fiber-optic receiver. In contrast to typical fiber-optic communication elements, that are transceivers, the TX equipment doesn’t comprise a receiver and the RX equipment doesn’t comprise a transmitter. As a result of there isn’t a laser within the receiver, there isn’t a bodily manner for the receiving circuit board to ship any data again to the transmitting board. The equipment can be utilized to transmit data out of the management system community into an exterior community, or on to the web, with out the chance of a cyber occasion or one other sign returning into the management system.
Determine 1 reveals how a unidirectional gateway replicates historian information from an industrial community to an exterior community, corresponding to an enterprise IT community or Cloud. Unidirectional gateway software program operating on the economic circuit board connects to the economic historian database and points queries to the database. Historic information retrieved from the economic database is distributed throughout the unidirectional gateway {hardware} to software program operating on the board related to the exterior community. That software program registers as a shopper of the duplicate historian database. It then points insert requests to that database asking the database to retailer all of the timestamped information acquired from the economic community. Customers and functions on the exterior community that want entry to the historic information can entry the duplicate historian. This strategy isolates and protects the economic techniques within the industrial community.
Determine 1: Historian information replication utilizing a Unidirectional gateway (courtesy Waterfall Safety Options)
Choice 1: Sending OT/IIoT information to AWS IoT SiteWise
Determine 2 reveals how one can ship industrial information to AWS IoT SiteWise utilizing a unidirectional gateway. AWS IoT SiteWise is a managed service that simplifies gathering, organizing, and analyzing industrial tools information at scale. The Waterfall gateway equipment reads OPC UA information from an OPC UA server and hosts a reproduction OPC UA server for the IT community. An AWS IoT SiteWise Edge gateway operating on AWS IoT Greengrass reads the OPC UA information from the duplicate OPC UA server and sends that information to AWS IoT SiteWise within the cloud. The information is saved in AWS IoT SiteWise and will be visualized in AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor. AWS IoT SiteWise Edge software program makes it simple to gather, set up, course of, and monitor tools information on-premises. AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor is a characteristic of AWS IoT SiteWise that you need to use to create portals within the type of a managed net utility. You may then use these portals to view and share your industrial/operational information.
Determine 2 – Sending industrial tools information utilizing a unidirectional gateway to AWS IoT SiteWise
Resolution Overview
AWS
AWS IoT Greengrass is an open-source edge runtime and cloud service for constructing, deploying, and managing gadget software program. With AWS IoT Greengrass put in, you’ll be able to deploy AWS IoT SiteWise Edge gateways to gather industrial information utilizing industrial protocols corresponding to OPC UA.
2. Deploy AWS IoT SiteWise Edge gateway software program
AWS IoT SiteWise gateways run on AWS IoT Greengrass V2 as an IoT Greengrass element that helps information assortment and processing on premises. On this step, you deploy the AWS IoT SiteWise Edge gateway software program for information assortment utilizing OPC UA and configure the OPC UA settings.
3. Mannequin the belongings in AWS IoT SiteWise
Mannequin the belongings to create digital representations of your industrial operation with AWS IoT SiteWise. An asset represents a tool, a chunk of kit, or a course of that uploads a number of information streams to the AWS Cloud.
4. Configure AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor dashboard
Create a dashboard to watch key working parameters and efficiency metrics in your belongings utilizing AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor and take mandatory actions when wanted in near-real time.
Waterfall
5. Setup the OPC UA shopper on the Waterfall unidirectional gateway equipment
Use the unidirectional gateway’s web-based consumer interface on the economic community. Log in and configure an OPC UA information supply. Enter the host identify/IP deal with and login credentials. Additionally, embrace directions about copying all information factors within the OPC UA server (the default), or choose the components of the OPC UA namespace that may be copied to the IT community.
- Waterfall TX acts as a local OPC UA shopper that reads information from the OPC UA server on the shopper’s industrial system in actual time.
- Waterfall RX acts as a reproduction of the economic OPC UA server and allows OPC UA purchasers on the enterprise community to learn the replicated information.
For detailed directions, confer with the Waterfall Safety product documentation.
Choice 2: Sending OT/IIoT information to AWS IoT Core
Determine 3 reveals how one can ship industrial information to AWS IoT Core by a unidirectional gateway and utilizing the MQTT protocol. Messages can then be routed to totally different AWS companies (corresponding to AWS IoT Occasions, AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Easy Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon Timestream) for processing utilizing the AWS IoT guidelines engine. The Waterfall Unidirectional Gateway is an MQTT dealer on the economic community. It receives MQTT messages from industrial techniques and sends that information by the gateway to the Waterfall shopper, which then sends the info to AWS IoT Core.
Determine 3 – Sending industrial tools information utilizing a unidirectional gateway to AWS IoT Core
Resolution Overview
AWS
1. Setup Amazon Timestream to retailer the info originating from the economic database.
On this state of affairs, we use Timestream which is a quick, scalable, and serverless time-series database. Nonetheless, you need to use different purpose-built AWS Cloud databases.
2. Create an AWS IoT Factor with certificates and guidelines to ship information to Timestream.
On this step, the Waterfall Unidirectional gateway is created as an IoT Factor in AWS IoT Core with an IoT certificates and IoT coverage. A rule is configured to ship information acquired by AWS IoT Core to Timestream. Timestream integrates with generally used companies for visualization and machine studying. For instance, you’ll be able to visualize information utilizing Amazon QuickSight or Amazon Managed Grafana, and use Amazon SageMaker for machine studying.
3. Create and setup the Amazon Managed Grafana dashboard to visualise information.
4. Configure the Amazon Managed Grafana dashboard and create the graphs.
5. Visualize your time sequence OT/IIoT information and create alerts utilizing Amazon Managed Grafana.
Waterfall
6. Setup an MQTT connector by the Waterfall web-based consumer interface on the economic and the IT sides of the unidirectional gateway equipment.
For detailed directions, confer with Waterfall Safety product documentation.
Conclusion
On this publish, you discovered the right way to stream OT/IIoT information to AWS IoT SiteWise and AWS IoT Core utilizing the Waterfall Unidirectional Cloud Gateway. This resolution allows regulated industries and important infrastructure sectors to benefit from cloud companies in AWS (corresponding to IoT and AI/ML) whereas stopping distant occasions from penetrating again into protected industrial networks. Whereas the unidirectional gateway simplifies OT/IT integration and helps enhance the safety posture, it’s only one facet when designing safe OT/IIoT community architectures. AWS recommends a multi-layered strategy to safe the ICS/OT, IIoT, and cloud environments as described in the ten safety golden guidelines for IIoT options.
Sources:
Ryan Dsouza is a Principal Industrial IoT (IIoT) Safety Options Architect at AWS. Primarily based in New York Metropolis, Ryan helps clients design, develop, and function safer, scalable, and progressive IIoT options utilizing the breadth and depth of AWS capabilities to ship measurable enterprise outcomes. Ryan has over 25 years of expertise in digital platforms, sensible manufacturing, vitality administration, constructing and industrial automation, and OT/IIoT safety throughout a various vary of industries. Ryan is captivated with bringing safety to all related units and being a champion of constructing a greater, safer, and extra resilient world for everybody. Earlier than AWS, Ryan labored for Accenture, SIEMENS, Common Electrical, IBM, and AECOM, serving clients for his or her digital transformation initiatives.